In the News

June 30, 2014 | Attention, supersleuth readers: We have a brand new tool for you to play with, a new category on our anomaly tracker. This one is focused on outlier expenditures of political committees, allowing you to find out when more than 50 percent of a committee’s money goes to a single vendor — and who those cash-guzzlers are.…

January 18, 2013 | The Lance Armstrong Foundation, which in November officially changed its name to the Livestrong Foundation, has spent over $2 million lobbying on funding for cancer research since 2001, and Boeing has some good friends in Washington help it battle the turbulence its currently experiencing.

December 3, 2012 | J.C. Watts, who's being mentioned as a possible RNC chair, has some strong ties to shadow money. A dialysis company that's accused of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid has invested heavily in Washington. And Bloomberg's pro-gun control super PAC likely had an impact.

April 2, 2012 | Leadership PACs run by House Republicans were dominant in contributing to candidates in 2010. The Dems fell behind. How did former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi's PAC perform compared to those of GOP leaders Eric Cantor and John Boehner?

September 12, 2011 | Twenty-three corporations -- including AT&T, Exxon Mobil, Kraft, Coca-Cola and Koch Industries -- compose the ALEC's "private enterprise board." On the national level, these companies have been mustering a juggernaut of lobbyists to target congressional initiatives and donating extensively to a number of candidates.

August 17, 2011 | As the supercommittee meets to come up with a way to cut $1.5 trillion from the national debt, the decisions about which programs will be axed will be made by lawmakers, who, by and large, are far wealthier than the average American.

August 17, 2011 | The 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction won't be legislating in a vacuum: They bring with them ties to particular industries and loyalties to particular issues.

August 8, 2011 | Republican candidates in the crucial early primary and caucus states of Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire benefited significantly more than their counterparts in other states from the leadership PACs of the GOP presidential hopefuls.

July 26, 2011 | The 2010 election was a historic one for a number of reasons. And, now, a new page launched on OpenSecrets.org gives you the highlights of the 2010 election, so you can see for yourself who gave money, who got money and much, much more.

June 1, 2011 | As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was running for re-election, about $1 out of every $20 he raised for his massive war chest came from a tiny but elite group of Washington insiders: federally registered lobbyists and their immediate family members, according to a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics of campaign finance data and lobbying reports.

February 3, 2011 | Big-name political figures, including potential presidential candidates and party leaders, hauled in millions of dollars during the 2010 election cycle through their personal leadership PACs, according to a Center for Responsive Politics review of campaign finance reports recently filed with the Federal Election Commission. And Republicans dominated.

December 8, 2010 | While being targeted by the government for consumer and corporate power abuses, Bank of America has spent millions of dollars attempting to woo state and federal officials through professional lobbying efforts and campaign contributions, an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics finds. The company even has two corporate political action committees that target the levels of government differently.

November 18, 2010 | After losing more than 60 seats in the U.S. House, some Democrats balked at re-electing Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as their caucus' top dog. Former Washington Redskins quarterback and Blue Dog Rep. Heath Shuler went so far as to run against Pelosi, who has funneled $28,000 to Shuler over the years.

November 1, 2010 | In her re-election bid, sophomore Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the chair of the House Tea Party Caucus, has spent more than any other House candidate running for office this year. As of Oct. 13, she had spent a staggering $8.7 million -- that's one-and-a-half times as much as she spent in 2008 and nearly two-and-a-half times as much as she spent in 2006.

October 28, 2010 | Last week Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) sent a letter, co-signed by 14 other Democratic senators, to the Federal Election Commission, requesting that they "repair and strengthen protections against foreign influence of American elections." But how deep does their desire to strengthen protections against foreign influence go?

October 5, 2010 | Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a Tea Party-loving conservative who wants to shake up and remold the institution he currently calls home, stands above other lawmakers in the frontier of creative uses of leadership PACs to aide fellow candidates.

October 4, 2010 | Dollars spent on lobbying are set to increase over all other years if spending remains on its current course. And in context of 2010 congressional campaigns, the top lobbyist-funded House and Senate candidates have received more than $9 million to fuel their campaigns.

October 4, 2010 | Not all congressional districts are created equal when it comes to the amount of campaign contributions flowing to candidates. Sometimes, the discrepancy between an incumbent's war chest and that of a challenger is only thousands of dollars. Sometimes, it's millions. And in many congressional districts, incumbents are blowing their competition out of the water.

September 27, 2010 | Ahead of the November election, top 20 House beneficiaries of the people and political action committees associated with the finance, insurance and real estate sector have together collected more than $16.2 million from Wall Street interests since January 2009. Meanwhile, the Senate candidates and sitting senators to receive the most from Wall Street interests raked in more than $41.3 million since January 2005 -- the beginning of their six-year election cycle.

July 21, 2010 | In June, the sole beneficiary of Goldman Sachs was House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), to whom the PAC cut a $5,000 check on June 8, according to a Center for Responsive Politics review of campaign finance documents filed Tuesday.

July 13, 2010 | Twenty-eight members of Congress and congressional candidates have received at least $100,000 from lobbyists during the first five quarters of the 2010 election cycle, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis shows.

November 2, 2009 | With Republican Diedre Scozzafava ending her bid in for Congress and endorsing her Democratic opponent Bill Owens, Owens and Conservative Party nominee Doug are now vying to win over Scozzafava's supporters, including those who lent financial support to her campaign.

August 6, 2009 | Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) is now an infamous scofflaw who now faces decades in prison after a federal jury Wednesday convicted him of 11 counts of racketeering, solicitation of bribery and money laundering. An ironic footnote: Lawyers and law firms are by far Jefferson's largest campaign donors during his now ruined congressional career, which began in 1990 when he became Louisiana's first elected black congressman since Reconstruction, and ended in December when the embattled politico lost reelection.

July 16, 2009 | Current congressional candidates who have turned in campaign finance reports for both the first and second quarters have raised a total of $145.8 million since the start of the year. This includes second quarter reports, due last night at midnight, for about 375 current lawmakers, who raised $65.6 million in the second quarter.

June 25, 2009 | Here's a cool tool that brings together data from various parts of OpenSecrets.org to show how much money each current lawmaker has raised from various health-related industries and the health sector overall since 1989 (including President Obama's haul).

February 18, 2009 | As the story behind the embattled investment company Stanford Financial Group develops, we thought we'd take an even closer look at the seeds the company may have tried to plant in Washington via campaign contributions. When looking at ALL lawmakers to collect money from the company's PAC and employees (not just members of the current Congress), some additional, important names appear at the top of the recipient list.

February 17, 2009 | Money manager Robert Allen Stanford now has two things in common with embattled investment manager Bernard Madoff: both have come under scrutiny for allegedly defrauding their investors, and both have given significant funds to politicians. Between its PAC and its employees, Stanford Financial Group has given $2.4 million to federal candidates, parties and committees since 2000.

February 12, 2009 | The close ties between Rep. John Murtha and a Washington lobbying firm raided by the FBI have put the powerful Pennsylvania Democrat under greater scrutiny. The lobbyists at PMA Group have been Murtha's fifth most generous campaign donor over time, but he is just one of 284 members of the 111th Congress who have collected money from the firm, which specializes in securing federal earmarks for its clients. In total, PMA Group's employees and its political action committee have given current members of Congress $3.4 million since 1989.

October 2, 2008 | Like reading tea leaves, one way to predict how a congressional race is going to go is by looking at the disparity in fundraising between the candidates. So far this election cycle, 280 House and Senate incumbents on November's ballot have collected at least 10 times more than the opponent they face in the general election. In this installment of Races to Watch, Capital Eye looks into why some of these incumbents have been such successful fundraisers.

September 30, 2008 | Registered lobbyists aren't just getting the attention of lawmakers while on the job. Like any other member of the public, they, too, are able to contribute up to the maximum amount per election to candidates of their choice. The Center for Responsive Politics has identified the congressional races with candidates who are receiving the most money from registered lobbyists.

September 25, 2008 | Private interests and members of the public aren't the only ones betting their money on the congressional candidates they hope will win (or retain) congressional seats. Lawmakers in both parties have a vested interest in seeing their own candidates succeed this November, with Democrats wanting to strengthen their majority and Republicans hoping to minimize their losses. Here we look at some of the candidates getting the largest cash infusions from their own parties, indicating a close race.

September 23, 2008 | The last time Congress seriously debated how to regulate the financial industry, the result was legislation that allowed the nation's largest banks to get even larger and take risks that had been prohibited since the Great Depression. A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.

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